In defense of: Obnoxious "Professional Parents" in Public.

          You've seen them...you've heard them...maybe you ARE one of them! The loudly speaking, overly demonstrative, talking-about-herself-in-third-person, saccharine-sweet Professional Parent.  My mom and I used to make fun of them and make uber-snarky comments about them when we saw and heard them at Wegmans (why were we so mean?) This is a group of people that used to be at the top of my list of People I Want To Punch In The Throat. Not like it kept me up at night, but it was a source of mean fun to talk about how obnoxious they were. This was until I realized....DUNDUNDUN...I am married to one! And sometimes I act like one myself.





          Professional parents might be seen and heard narrating all of their actions in the grocery store aisles. They might be explaining something, or moralizing for all to hear (e.g. "we don't hit when we are mad!"). They usually talk about themselves in third person ("Mommy is pushing the cart!") - this one super bugged me until I started to do it. I don't really know why I do it...it just happens. I noticed recently that Matt does this with Abe. If someone didn't know us, it might drive them crazy, too. But because I know Matt and all of his intentions and love for Abe, I began to question my former annoyance.

          Seeing Matt behave this way made me think about it in more of a devil's advocate kind of way. Why are they doing it like that? Are they REALLY trying to impress everyone at the store...or are they doing it for themselves and their kids? Part of why I enjoy writing (even though blogs may be the death of prose) is that it helps me with the though exercise of "turn to wonder", something I learned about during my Catholics On Call weekend way back when. When someone is doing something that annoys you, offends you, or that you don't understand...turn to wonder: why? You might never find out, but it's a good idea to wonder why people do the things they do. Even if you are wrong, and err on the side of compassion and giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is why I LOVED cultural anthropology, too. When you learn about the context in which someone grew up, you learn SO much about them. This is something I must work on daily.

          When I see Matt talk in his Professional Parent voice, here are some things I know about it. He is doing it at home, so no, it is not a public display of what an amazing parent he is, or even a display for me since I hear him doing it when I am in the next room. Abe is listening to and starting to repeat everything we say, so it makes sense for him to know us as "Mommy" and "Daddy" instead of I and Me, which might be confusing to him. We want Abe to know the reasons we are doing things, so yes, we do narrate our actions from time to time. We are already seeing the benefits of this, as he knows now what "peeing on the potty" is and can indeed pee on the potty, wash his hands, etc. Maybe he would have figured it out anyway, but I think it helped that we repeat the phrase when we are in the bathroom with him. As for the saccharine sweet tone and sing-songy voice, I think a lot of that is natural. It's called Motherese. I learned about this in linguistics and found it fascinating. I got so used to it with Abe that I spoke to a patient in Motherese my first day back from maternity leave; fixing her gown and saying "Let's cover up your bum bummmm!"

          That's all for today! Thank you for reading.

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